Average Brit Spends Over 2 Hours a Day Worrying About Depression

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is becoming a nation of worriers, according to a new survey, with the financial crisis giving people ever more reason to fret about their lives.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The average person now spends 2-1/4 hours of every day worrying — six and half years of the average life span — a figure up 30 minutes a day from last year, according to the worry index compiled by reallyworried.com, a support group.

Young adults — those aged between 16 and 24 — worry the most, and women worry substantially more than men, according to the survey of 1,400 people nationwide.

The top five concerns in 2008 were: the cost of living, energy prices, personal health, outgoings and income, and personal debt.

Job security, which last year didn’t figure in the top 25 worries, shot up to number 7 in the rankings, one notch below recession and a bigger concern than crime.

So much fretting can take a terrible toll on people’s health and their sex lives, according to the survey’s compilers.

One in five questioned said they drowned their concerns in drink, up 50 percent on last year. One in six said they now shy away from sex because of their constant fretting.